Sea Lions Of Cortez

Bottom line first

Let's start with the most pressing question: Would we suggest to visit this place? Well, by the odds, no. It's very expensive, dive sites are far out and the water is really cold relatively to what you will probably see.

From the beginning

We were made aware of The Sea of Cortez hugged by the Baja California Sur. It is known for big families of rays, whalesharks and seals. Not our Muck Diving focus but a change from time to time can be refreshing.... As was the water with it's 22-23°C when we visited in December 2023.

We took Silke's mom and our friend, Thomas, and flew through LAX to San Jose Del Cabo and finally settled in La Paz after a two hour taxi ride. Looking back on it, we could have stayed a few days in Cabo. It appears that the marine life is abundant, there, too, but of course, that place is even more touristy.

Geographically, this place is in Mexico, but boy are the prices US American.
The dive sites are all around Islas Espirito Santo which means, every day we'd do 3 dives but going out and coming in would toll in at 2h daily just sitting on the boat.

Let's start with the small stuff

As you know us, we're more into macro, and of course we we not able to shut off our sensors so Silke found tonns of Nudis but the variety was little. And I found multiple octopus, again, little variety but cuties, none the less!

Turtles around wrecks

We also found bullseye rays and some bigger fish, saw a gigantic Oceanic Manta and snorkelling with the Whale Sharks was fine but never on the level we met them in Indonesia (check out the blog article about it!).

Also near a few wrecks we'd always get visited by completely not shy turtles.

Sea Lions, Sea Lions everywhere

The main highlight of La Paz are the Sea Lion Colonies. The young ones were so playful and the elderly sometimes downright scary and they were usually surrounded by thick swarms of sardines, so thick you'd actually get lost and can't see other divers, anymore!

Since Michaela had an ear issue, she was mainly snorkelling while we dove under with the sea lions. One youngster was so cheeky, he grabed Silkes strobe cable which resulted in a funny little pulling match.